Service-learning pedagogy, civic engagement, and academic engagement: Multiple bi-directional relationships in college freshman
Valerie Sessa, Associate Professor, Montclair State University [sessav@mail.montclair.edu]
Stanley Grabowski, student, Montclair State University [grabowski_stanley@yahoo.com]
Summary
This study draws on Bandura’s idea of reciprocal determinism (1978) to demonstrate the interrelationships between environment (service learning) and student engagement attitudes and behaviors. A quasi-experimental design with data collected at two points in time was employed in which data were collected from 300 participants drawn from 379 freshmen participating in learning communities in their first semester of college.
The first hypothesis predicted the main effects of high school civic engagement levels on first year college students enrolled in a service-learning course. The results supported this hypothesis in the sense that students with prior community engagement experience were more likely to take a service-learning course. The second hypothesis predicted the main effects of high school academic engagement levels on first year college students enrolled in a service-learning course. The results did not support this hypothesis in the sense that there was no relationship between prior academic engagement and the likelihood of taking a service-learning course.
The third hypothesis predicted main effects of participation in a service-learning course on civic engagement levels for first year college students. The results demonstrated partial support for this hypothesis, meaning that students in the service-learning course were more civically engaged in their behaviors but not more civically engaged with their attitudes.
The fourth hypothesis predicted the main effects of participation in a service-learning course on academic engagement levels for college freshman. The results indicated that first year college students in a service-learning course were not more likely to have higher academic engagement attitudes or behaviors than freshmen in the comparison group - demonstrating no support for this hypothesis.
The fifth and sixth hypotheses were structured within the first year college studentss service-learning course and predicted the main effects of academic and civic behavioral engagement on academic and civic attitudinal engagement, respectively. The results demonstrated support for the fifth hypothesis that academic behavioral engagement within a service-learning course leads to greater change in both academic and civic attitudinal engagement at the end of the course and partial support for the sixth hypothesis that civic behavioral engagement within a service-learning course leads to greater change in civic but not academic attitudinal engagement at the end of the course.
References
Astin, A. W., & Sax, L. J. (1998). How undergraduates are affected by service participation. Journal of College Student Development, 39(3), 251–263.
Astin, A., Vogelgesang, L., Ikeda, E., & Yee, J. (2000). How service learning affects students. Los Angeles, CA: Higher Education Research Institute.
Benson, L., & Harkavy, I. (2002). Academically-based community service and university-assisted community schools as complementary approaches for advancing, learning, teaching, research and service: The University of Pennsylvania as a case study in progress. In K. M. Simon, L. A. K. Brabeck, & R. Lerner (Eds.), Learning to serve: Promoting civil society through service learning, (pp. 362–78). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Billig, S. H. (2007). Unpacking what works in service learning: Promising research-based practices to improve student outcomes. Retrieved from National Youth Leadership Council Resource Library website: www.nylc.org/resources
Bobek, D., Zaff, J., Li, Y., & Lerner, R. M. (2009). Cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components of civic action: Towards an integrative measure of civic engagement. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 30, 615–627.
Bringle, R. G., & Hatcher, J. A. (2009). Innovative practices in service-learning and curricular engagement. New Directions for Higher Education, (2009)147, 37–46.
Campbell, D. E. (2006). What is education’s impact on civic and social engagement? In Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Measuring the Effects of Education on Health and Civic Engagement: Proceedings of the Copenhagen Symposium, 25-126.
Clayton, P. H., & Ash, S. L. (2004). Shifts in perspective: Capitalizing on the counter-normative nature of service-learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 11(1), 59–70.
Conway, J., Amel, E. L., & Gerwien, D. P. (2009). Teaching and learning in the social context: A meta-analysis of service learning’s effects on academic, personal, social, and citizenship outcomes. Teaching of Psychology, 36, 233–245.
Erlich, T. (2000). Civic responsibility and higher education. Greenwood Publishing Group.
Eyler, J. S., & Giles, D. E., Jr. (1999). Where's the learning in service-learning? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Foster-Bey, J. (2008). Do race, ethnicity, citizenship, and social-economic status determine civic engagement? Retrieved from http://www.civicyouth.org
Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. C., & Paris, A. H. (2004). School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74(1), 59–109.
Gallini, S. M., & Moely, B. E. (2003). Service-learning and engagement, academic challenge, and retention. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 10(1), 5–14.
Howard, J. P. F. (1998). Academic service learning: A counternormative pedagogy. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 1998(73), 21–29.
Jameson, J. K., Clayton, P. H., & Bringle, R. G. (2008). Investigating student learning within and across linked service-learning courses In S. Billig & M. Bowden (Eds.), Advances in service learning (pp. 3-27): Denver, CO: RMC.
Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692–724.
Keeter, S., Zukin, C., Andolina, M., & Jenkins, K. (2002). The 2002 civic and political health of the nation: A generational portrait. Retrieved from http://www.civicyouth.org
Kuh, G. D. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities. Retrieved from http://www.neasc.org/downloads/aacu_high_impact_2008_final.pdf
Kuh, G. D. (2009). What student affairs professionals need to know about student engagement. Journal of College Student Development, 50(6), 683–706.
Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H., Whitt, E. J., & Associates. (2005). Student success in college: Creating conditions thatmatter. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Leithwood, K., & Jantzi, D. (1999). Transformational school leadership effects: A replication. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 10(4), 451–479.
Leithwood, K., & Jantzi, D. (2000). Principal and teacher leadership effects: A replication. School Leadership & Management, 20(4), 415–434.
Lopez, M. H., Levine, P., Both, D., Kiesa, A., Kirby, E., & Marcelo, K. (2006). The 2006 civic and political health of the nation: A detailed look at how youth participate in politics and communities. Retrieved from http://www.civicyouth.org
Ludlum, J., Gordon, J., Noyes, C., Gardner, D., & Davis-Barham, J. (2008, May). The student element in engagement. Paper presented at the meeting of the Association for Institutional Research, Seattle, WA. Retrieved from http://www.uga.edu/irp/reports/2008/AIR2008%20Paper%20FINAL.pdf
Markus, G. B., Howard, J. P. F., & King, D. C. (1993). Integrating community service and classroom instruction enhances learning: Results from an experiment. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 15(4), 410–419.
Martin, A. J. (2009). Motivation and engagement across the academic life span: A developmental construct validity study of elementary school, high school, and university/college students. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 69(5), 794–824.
McKenna, M. W., & Rizzo, E. (1999). Outside the classroom: Student perceptions of the benefits of service learning. Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community, 18(1-2), 111–123.
Moely, B. E., McFarland, M., Miron, D., Mercer, S., & Ilustre, V. (2002). Changes in college students’ attitudes and intentions for civic involvement as a function of ser- vice-learning experiences. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 9(2), 18–26.
Obradovic, J., & Masten, A.S. (2007). Developmental antecedents of young adult civic engagement. Applied Developmental Science, 11(1), 2–19.
Omoto, A. M., Snyder, M., & Hackett, J. D. (2010). Personality and motivational antecedents of activism and civic engagement. Journal of Personality, 78, 1703–1734.
Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (2005). How college affects students: A third decade of research (Vol. 2). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
Prentice, M. (2007). Service learning and civic engagement. Academic Questions, 20, 135–145.
Rich, B. L., LePine, J. A., & Crawford, E. R. (2010). Job engagement: Antecedents and effects on job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 53(3), 617–635.
Sessa, V. I., London, M., Natale, D. K., & Hopkins, C. A. (2010). How students learn in a service learning course: A quasi-experimental field study of generative learning. Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education, 1(2), 1-20.
Shiarella, A., McCarthy, A. M., & Tucker, M. L. (2000). Development and construct validity of scores on the community service attitudes scale. Educational and psychological measurement, 60, 286–300.
Swaner, L. E. (2011). The theories, contexts, and multiple pedagogies of engaged learning: What succeeds and why? In D.W. Harward (Ed.) Transforming undergraduate education: Theory that compels and practices that succeed. Rowman & Littlefield Pulishers, Inc, New York.
Swaner, L. E. (2005, April). What is the research basis for linking engaged learning, student mental health and well-being, and civic development? Paper presented at AAC&U’s Bringing Theory to Practice, 2nd Annual Working Conference, Bethesda MD.
Wolf-Wendel, L., Ward, K., & Kinzie, J. (2009). A tangled web of terms: The overlap and unique contribution of involvement, engagement, and integration to understanding college student success. Journal of College Student Development, 50(4), 407–428.
Zaff, J., Boyd, M., Li, Y., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (2010). Active and engaged citizenship: Multi-group and longitudinal factorial analysis of an integrated construct of civic engagement. Journal of Youth Adolescence, 39, 736–750.
Zukin, C., Keeter, S., Andolina, M., Jenkins, K., & Carpini, M. D. (2006). A new engagement? Political participation, civic life, and the changing American citizen. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
To access materials from this session please click on the file link(s) below:
Service-learning pedagogy, civic engagement, and academic engagement: Multiple bi-directional relationships in college freshman
Valerie Sessa, Associate Professor, Montclair State University [sessav@mail.montclair.edu]
Stanley Grabowski, student, Montclair State University [grabowski_stanley@yahoo.com]
Keywords: Bi-directional relationships, reciprocal determinism, academic engagement, civic engagement
Conference track: Higher education student outcomes
Format: Research/Scholarly paper
Summary
This study draws on Bandura’s idea of reciprocal determinism (1978) to demonstrate the interrelationships between environment (service learning) and student engagement attitudes and behaviors. A quasi-experimental design with data collected at two points in time was employed in which data were collected from 300 participants drawn from 379 freshmen participating in learning communities in their first semester of college.
The first hypothesis predicted the main effects of high school civic engagement levels on first year college students enrolled in a service-learning course. The results supported this hypothesis in the sense that students with prior community engagement experience were more likely to take a service-learning course. The second hypothesis predicted the main effects of high school academic engagement levels on first year college students enrolled in a service-learning course. The results did not support this hypothesis in the sense that there was no relationship between prior academic engagement and the likelihood of taking a service-learning course.
The third hypothesis predicted main effects of participation in a service-learning course on civic engagement levels for first year college students. The results demonstrated partial support for this hypothesis, meaning that students in the service-learning course were more civically engaged in their behaviors but not more civically engaged with their attitudes.
The fourth hypothesis predicted the main effects of participation in a service-learning course on academic engagement levels for college freshman. The results indicated that first year college students in a service-learning course were not more likely to have higher academic engagement attitudes or behaviors than freshmen in the comparison group - demonstrating no support for this hypothesis.
The fifth and sixth hypotheses were structured within the first year college studentss service-learning course and predicted the main effects of academic and civic behavioral engagement on academic and civic attitudinal engagement, respectively. The results demonstrated support for the fifth hypothesis that academic behavioral engagement within a service-learning course leads to greater change in both academic and civic attitudinal engagement at the end of the course and partial support for the sixth hypothesis that civic behavioral engagement within a service-learning course leads to greater change in civic but not academic attitudinal engagement at the end of the course.
References
Astin, A. W., & Sax, L. J. (1998). How undergraduates are affected by service participation. Journal of College Student Development, 39(3), 251–263.
Astin, A., Vogelgesang, L., Ikeda, E., & Yee, J. (2000). How service learning affects students. Los Angeles, CA: Higher Education Research Institute.
Bandura, A. (1978). The self-system in reciprocal determinism, American Psychologist, 33, 344–3
Benson, L., & Harkavy, I. (2002). Academically-based community service and university-assisted community schools as complementary approaches for advancing, learning, teaching, research and service: The University of Pennsylvania as a case study in progress. In K. M. Simon, L. A. K. Brabeck, & R. Lerner (Eds.), Learning to serve: Promoting civil society through service learning, (pp. 362–78). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Billig, S. H. (2007). Unpacking what works in service learning: Promising research-based practices to improve student outcomes. Retrieved from National Youth Leadership Council Resource Library website: www.nylc.org/resources
Bobek, D., Zaff, J., Li, Y., & Lerner, R. M. (2009). Cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components of civic action: Towards an integrative measure of civic engagement. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 30, 615–627.
Bringle, R. G., & Hatcher, J. A. (2009). Innovative practices in service-learning and curricular engagement. New Directions for Higher Education, (2009)147, 37–46.
Campbell, D. E. (2006). What is education’s impact on civic and social engagement? In Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Measuring the Effects of Education on Health and Civic Engagement: Proceedings of the Copenhagen Symposium, 25-126.
Clayton, P. H., & Ash, S. L. (2004). Shifts in perspective: Capitalizing on the counter-normative nature of service-learning. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 11(1), 59–70.
Conway, J., Amel, E. L., & Gerwien, D. P. (2009). Teaching and learning in the social context: A meta-analysis of service learning’s effects on academic, personal, social, and citizenship outcomes. Teaching of Psychology, 36, 233–245.
Erlich, T. (2000). Civic responsibility and higher education. Greenwood Publishing Group.
Eyler, J. S., & Giles, D. E., Jr. (1999). Where's the learning in service-learning? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Foster-Bey, J. (2008). Do race, ethnicity, citizenship, and social-economic status determine civic engagement? Retrieved from http://www.civicyouth.org
Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. C., & Paris, A. H. (2004). School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74(1), 59–109.
Gallini, S. M., & Moely, B. E. (2003). Service-learning and engagement, academic challenge, and retention. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 10(1), 5–14.
Howard, J. P. F. (1998). Academic service learning: A counternormative pedagogy. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 1998(73), 21–29.
Jameson, J. K., Clayton, P. H., & Bringle, R. G. (2008). Investigating student learning within and across linked service-learning courses In S. Billig & M. Bowden (Eds.), Advances in service learning (pp. 3-27): Denver, CO: RMC.
Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692–724.
Keeter, S., Zukin, C., Andolina, M., & Jenkins, K. (2002). The 2002 civic and political health of the nation: A generational portrait. Retrieved from http://www.civicyouth.org
Kuh, G. D. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities. Retrieved from http://www.neasc.org/downloads/aacu_high_impact_2008_final.pdf
Kuh, G. D. (2009). What student affairs professionals need to know about student engagement. Journal of College Student Development, 50(6), 683–706.
Kuh, G. D., Cruce, T., Shoup, R., Kinzie, J., & Gonyea, R. M. (2007, April). //Unmasking the effects of student engagement on college grades and persistence.// Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. Retrieved from http://nsse.iub.edu/html/pubs.cfm
Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H., Whitt, E. J., & Associates. (2005). Student success in college: Creating conditions that matter. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Leithwood, K., & Jantzi, D. (1999). Transformational school leadership effects: A replication. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 10(4), 451–479.
Leithwood, K., & Jantzi, D. (2000). Principal and teacher leadership effects: A replication. School Leadership & Management, 20(4), 415–434.
Lopez, M. H., Levine, P., Both, D., Kiesa, A., Kirby, E., & Marcelo, K. (2006). The 2006 civic and political health of the nation: A detailed look at how youth participate in politics and communities. Retrieved from http://www.civicyouth.org
Ludlum, J., Gordon, J., Noyes, C., Gardner, D., & Davis-Barham, J. (2008, May). The student element in engagement. Paper presented at the meeting of the Association for Institutional Research, Seattle, WA. Retrieved from http://www.uga.edu/irp/reports/2008/AIR2008%20Paper%20FINAL.pdf
Markus, G. B., Howard, J. P. F., & King, D. C. (1993). Integrating community service and classroom instruction enhances learning: Results from an experiment. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 15(4), 410–419.
Martin, A. J. (2009). Motivation and engagement across the academic life span: A developmental construct validity study of elementary school, high school, and university/college students. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 69(5), 794–824.
McKenna, M. W., & Rizzo, E. (1999). Outside the classroom: Student perceptions of the benefits of service learning. Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community, 18(1-2), 111–123.
Moely, B. E., McFarland, M., Miron, D., Mercer, S., & Ilustre, V. (2002). Changes in college students’ attitudes and intentions for civic involvement as a function of ser- vice-learning experiences. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 9(2), 18–26.
National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) (2011). Fostering student engagement campuswide: Annual results 2011. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, Center for Postsecondary Research. Retrieved from http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2011_Results/pdf/NSSE_2011_AnnualResults.pdf
Obradovic, J., & Masten, A.S. (2007). Developmental antecedents of young adult civic engagement. Applied Developmental Science, 11(1), 2–19.
Omoto, A. M., Snyder, M., & Hackett, J. D. (2010). Personality and motivational antecedents of activism and civic engagement. Journal of Personality, 78, 1703–1734.
Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (2005). How college affects students: A third decade of research (Vol. 2). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
Prentice, M. (2007). Service learning and civic engagement. Academic Questions, 20, 135–145.
Rich, B. L., LePine, J. A., & Crawford, E. R. (2010). Job engagement: Antecedents and effects on job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 53(3), 617–635.
Sessa, V. I., London, M., Natale, D. K., & Hopkins, C. A. (2010). How students learn in a service learning course: A quasi-experimental field study of generative learning. Journal of Community Engagement and Higher Education, 1(2), 1-20.
Shiarella, A., McCarthy, A. M., & Tucker, M. L. (2000). Development and construct validity of scores on the community service attitudes scale. Educational and psychological measurement, 60, 286–300.
Swaner, L. E. (2011). The theories, contexts, and multiple pedagogies of engaged learning: What succeeds and why? In D.W. Harward (Ed.) Transforming undergraduate education: Theory that compels and practices that succeed. Rowman & Littlefield Pulishers, Inc, New York.
Swaner, L. E. (2005, April). What is the research basis for linking engaged learning, student mental health and well-being, and civic development? Paper presented at AAC&U’s Bringing Theory to Practice, 2nd Annual Working Conference, Bethesda MD.
Wolf-Wendel, L., Ward, K., & Kinzie, J. (2009). A tangled web of terms: The overlap and unique contribution of involvement, engagement, and integration to understanding college student success. Journal of College Student Development, 50(4), 407–428.
Zaff, J., Boyd, M., Li, Y., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (2010). Active and engaged citizenship: Multi-group and longitudinal factorial analysis of an integrated construct of civic engagement. Journal of Youth Adolescence, 39, 736–750.
Zukin, C., Keeter, S., Andolina, M., Jenkins, K., & Carpini, M. D. (2006). A new engagement? Political participation, civic life, and the changing American citizen. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
To access materials from this session please click on the file link(s) below: